Broadsides! Caricature and the Navy 1756-1815

An exhibition about caricature and the Royal Navy during the second half of the eighteenth century. Work from the NMM collection by James Gillray, Isaac Cruikshank, Thomas Rowlandson and others is included in a show that focuses on a period when graphic satire became increasingly sophisticated and the navy assumed unprecedented importance in the popular imagination. Subjects explored include the way in which caricature helped to shape public opinion and its influence on national stereotypes, notions of celebrity and heroism, along with government policy of the time in the wake of major events such as the Seven Years War, the American War of Independence and the wars against revolutionary and Napoleonic France.